Finding Cheap Fuel with Gasbuddy.com

Are you as sick as I am of paying ridiculous fuel prices?  I was in Milwaukee this week and filled up the rental car at $3.70 a gallon.

I was Appalled

Gas in Atlanta is $3.39 and I think that's still exorbitant. With the oil companies raking in billions of dollars in profits, this is one issue that truly may sway my vote in November.  Energy costs have gotten out of hand in the United States.  They've been even higher in Europe for years.   Until the macro economic conditions allow for cheaper fuel at the pump, the best we can do is find the cheapest fuel available locally, then use it as wisely as possible.  That's where an excellent web site called Gasbuddy.com comes in.

Gasbuddy.com aggregates fuel prices from hundreds of fuel stations in the US and Canada and publishes a dynamic feed of gasoline prices in your local area, complete with Google-type maps and temperature maps that show fuel prices across the continent.  You can choose pricing options for all grades of fuel including diesel. Gasbuddy.com also provides helpful tips of fuel conservation, as well as historical data to track fuel pricing in your local area or area of interest.   Bloggers can embed Gasbuddy.com maps and highest/lowest pricing lists in your site as an RSS feed.

If ran a number of full line DC's with my own private fleet of trucks, tools like Gasbuddy.com would be an asset in figuring out where to source goods for maximum fuel savings.

Eric

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Comments

[Bryan]

Eric,
Informative post as always, a few thoughts:

Any company that has a feet of more than say 25 trucks can probably get a discount program from any of the major fuel retailers that gives them something like cost plus so and so percent. I am getting the sense that these companies have already offered the farm and there is not much margin left to squeeze out of fuel savings on the purchase side

On the issue of gas costs...its supply and demand. I don't think we can hate the companies for raking in big profits for providing an essential service. Just my opinion for sure, but I think we will need to see markedly higher prices than we have today in order to see real innovation shake up the old paradigm in fuel consumption.

[Spencer]

Another way to save on fuel costs is to use reusable shipping containers. Removing 20 lbs. of solid waste from a supply chain can save 1 gallon of gas. I'm willing to bet more companies will start using these containers as fuel prices keep rising and the sustainable/green movement continues.